Brian Naylor

In this role, he covers politics and federal agencies, including transportation and homeland security.

With more than 30 years of experience at NPR, Naylor has served as National Desk correspondent, White House correspondent, congressional correspondent, foreign correspondent and newscaster during All Things Considered. He has filled in as host on many NPR programs, including Morning Edition, Weekend Edition and Talk of the Nation.

During his NPR career, Naylor has covered many of the major world events, including political conventions, the Olympics, the White House, Congress and the mid-Atlantic region. Naylor reported from Tokyo in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, from New Orleans following the BP oil spill, and from West Virginia after the deadly explosion at the Upper Big Branch coal mine.

While covering the U.S. Congress in the mid-1990s, Naylor's reporting contributed to NPR's 1996 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Journalism award for political reporting.

Before coming to NPR in 1982, Naylor worked at NPR Member Station WOSU in Columbus, Ohio, and at a commercial radio station in Maine.

The engineer at the controls of the Amtrak train that derailed in Philadelphia last month was not using his cellphone during the time he was operating train No. 188.

The National Transportation Safety Board on Wednesday released a long-awaited analysis of cellphone records to determine whether the engineer was distracted at the time of the May 12 accident. Eight people died and some 200 others were injured in the derailment.

The inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security says his office is "deeply concerned" about the ability of the Transportation Security Administration to carry out its mission. John Roth told a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that despite hundreds of recommendations on security procedures "some problems appear to persist."

One of the difficulties that first responders during the Sept. 11 attacks faced was problematic communication, including radios that didn't allow different agencies to speak with one another.

It would seem like a simple problem to solve, and in the years since, the Department of Homeland Security has spent heavily, equipping agencies with new radios and special reserved frequencies for them to operate on.

The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down a law that allowed Americans who were born in Jerusalem to list Israel as their birthplace on their passports.

In a 6-3 ruling, the court said that the law, passed by Congress in 2002, interferes with the president's constitutional right to recognize foreign nations. The U.S. State Department has a long-standing policy not to recognize any nation's authority over Jerusalem until Israelis and Palestinians resolve its status.

For the first time, workers at a digital media company have voted to join a union. Editorial employees at Gawker Media are joining the Writers Guild of America, after a vote in which 80 employees or 75 percent voted in favor of forming a union, and 27 employees, or 25 percent opposed.

In a post on the Gawker website, the editorial employees say the next steps are "determining what we want to bargain for, forming a bargaining committee and negotiating a contract."

The NFL, long a mainstay of network TV, will be coming to more screens this fall. The league announced that it is partnering with Yahoo to live-stream the October 25 game between the Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars.

It's the first time the NFL will stream an Internet-only game (although fans in the two teams' markets will also be able to view the game on their usual TV stations.)

Lincoln Chafee has been a Republican U.S. senator and an independent governor and now is taking a shot at the presidency, as a Democrat.

Chafee announced his bid in a speech in Arlington, Va., at George Mason University on Wednesday. In his speech, Chafee said, "I enjoy challenges, and certainly we have many facing America. Today I'm formally entering the race for the Democratic nomination for president."

Would a permanent inspector general at the U.S. State Department have flagged then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private account for her e-mails? That was one of the questions raised at a Senate panel hearing on the lack of permanent inspectors general in the Obama administration.

A government watchdog says the Internal Revenue Service ignored many of its recommendations to improve computer security. But IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told a Senate panel Tuesday that a data breach reported last month involving the accounts of 104,000 taxpayers is an example of "a perfectly good security mechanism ... being overtaken by events."

An American freelance journalist who had been held by Houthi rebels in Yemen has been freed. The U.S. State Department says Casey Coombs is now in Oman, where he is undergoing a medical evaluation. Coombs had been reporting for The Intercept website and was one of a number of Americans being held in Yemen.

The Supreme Court has ruled 8-1 in favor of a young Muslim woman who was denied a job at Abercrombie & Fitch because she wore a headscarf.

Samantha Elauf had applied for the sales job in Tulsa, Okla., in 2008 and was recommended for hire by an interviewer. But Abercrombie has a "look policy" that bars the wearing of caps by its salespeople.

Three-term U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham has become the latest entrant into the GOP presidential field, announcing his candidacy Monday in his hometown of Central, S.C.

"I want to be president to protect our nation that we all love so much. So get ready. I'm ready," he told supporters. "I want to be president to defeat the enemies that are trying to kill us, not just penalize them or criticize them or contain them, but defeat them."

Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in Chicago. The Illinois Republican, 73, is charged with trying to evade cash withdrawal requirements, and with lying to the FBI about it.

A government program called Lifeline subsidizes basic phone service for low-income people. Now, the head of the Federal Communications Commission also wants to use the program to pay for broadband Internet connections, which many poor people lack.

When it comes to the Internet, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler says there are the haves and the have nots. Ninety-five percent of households with incomes over $150,000 a year have broadband access, he says. But just 48 percent of households making under $25,000 do.

The Obama administration announced new clean water rules Wednesday that it says will protect sources of drinking water for 117 million Americans, rules welcomed by environmental groups, but bitterly opposed by congressional Republicans and farm state democrats.

Malaysia Airlines, which last year had one of its planes disappear off the face of the earth and another shot down over Ukraine, is about to undergo an overhaul — one that means layoffs for as many as one-third of its 20,000 employees.

In an interview with Reuters, the company's new CEO, Christoph Mueller, said he plans to run the restructured airline like a "startup." The news service reports:

Intelligence officials on Wednesday released a trove of newly declassified documents, books and magazines found during the 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. They're calling it "Bin Laden's Bookshelf."

Four cancer "charities" and their operators have been charged with bilking more than $187 million from consumers. The Federal Trade Commission, along with each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, says the charities claimed to be providing assistance to cancer patients, but the donations were in reality benefiting only "the perpetrators, their families and friends, and fundraisers."

"Hello Twitter! It's Barack. Really." And with that, President Obama became part of the Twitterverse. The White House announced Monday that @POTUS would be "the official Twitter account of the President of the United States."

Amtrak was formed in the 1970s out of the ashes of several bankrupt rail lines, including the Penn Central. Its has been criticized for poor service, and shaky finances, but its safety record has been good.

More than 31 million passengers rode Amtrak in fiscal year 2013, the last for which figures are available. In the Northeast Corridor, more than 2,000 trains operate daily on Amtrak's rails, between commuter lines and Amtrak trains. And far more passengers ride Amtrak between Washington, New York and Boston than fly.

The U.S is home to the most Christians in the world, but the number of Americans who identify as Christian is declining, according to a newly released survey by the Pew Research Center. The survey of more than 35,000 Americans also found the number of people who consider themselves unaffiliated with any religion, or "nones," is growing.

This is National Infrastructure Week in Washington, D.C. That's when serious policy wonks, along with the construction, labor groups and other related industries, hold conferences, raise awareness and maybe most important, lobby Congress on behalf of road, bridge and other brick and mortar and concrete improvements.

There is added urgency to their efforts this year, as federal highway building money is set to run out, probably sometime this summer, and so is the government's authority to spend what little money it has left.

The European Union has presented a proposal to the United Nations aiming to stem the flood of migrants from the Middle East and Africa to Europe. The plan includes seizing and destroying the boats that smugglers are using to transport the migrants across the Mediterranean Sea. The EU's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, briefed the U.N. Security Council on the proposal Monday morning. "We need to count on your support to save lives," Mogherini told council members.